Wednesday, November 22, 2006

I think the reason I remember the name of Bettye Ackerman from my readings of various TV books here at the Toobworld Central Library is because of that unique spelling of her first name. Ms. Ackerman was an actress who recently passed away at the age of 82 in her home state of South Carolina.

She had a lengthy career in Television as a guest star, but perhaps her most famous role, the one the New York Times pegged as her best-known, was as Dr. Maggie Graham. Maggie Graham was a recurring role on 'Ben Casey', in which she was the love interest for the surly young doctor. (In real life, Ms. Ackerman was married to the co-star, the late Sam Jaffe, who played Dr. Zorba, Ben Casey's mentor.)

Looking over her list of credits, there are several guest-starring roles which could be surmised to be Dr. Maggie Graham, but after she had gone on to marry somebody else once her relationship with Dr. Ben Casey fell through:

She also played a role in the first version of "The Strange World Of Horace Ford", which aired on 'Studio One' and starred Art Carney. (The better known version starred Pat Hingle and was broadcast as an episode of 'The Twilight Zone'.) In a departure for Toobworld policy, it is the second version that is part of Earth Prime-Time, while the first version is relegated to an alternate dimension.

2 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Bettye Ackerman was also very involved with the Muscular Dystrophy and Cerabal Palsy Association in Southern CA and served as Chairman of the fund raising for MDA from 1964-68. Bettye was an absolutely lovely and compassionate human being. She was not only beautiful physically but beautiful internally as well. Both she and her husband Sam Jaffe donate thousands of dollars to MDS and the Cerebal Palsy Association over the years. Bettye was a person who was not interested in self glorification...she loved her husband, her family and her friends. Some people made life wonderful just by being, Bettye was one of those people. I can not wait to get to heaven to see and talk to her!

Just An Old Cowhand On The TiVo Grande

As the Trickster once said, "Reality is boring, that's why I change it whenever I can."
I'm just "The Man Who Viewed Too Much", and "Inner Toob" is a blog exploring and celebrating the 'reality' of an alternate universe in which everything that ever happened on TV actually takes place.
Most of my theories about the TV Universe come from thinking inside the box and thus can't be proven. But I've never been one to shy away from a tall tale.....
Remember: "The more you watch, the more you've seen!"